James Andersen and Caroline Nielsen
History -- James Andersen and Caroline Nielsen--History and Posterity. Compiled by Marilyn and George R. Hall, 1987.
Jens (James) Andersen, the fifth and youngest child of Anders Frederiksen and Ellen Jensdatter, was born 28 Apr 1835 in Tiendevad House, Munke-Bjergby Parish, Soro, Denmark. He was christened 14 June 1835 in Munke-Bjergby Parish. On 1 Sep 1835 his mother died, just four months after Jens was born. She was forty years old at the time of her death. Five months later his father married Karoline Nielsdatter. His father was the keeper of the forest and also a farmer. He died 22 Nov 1856 at the age of sixty-two. Jens’ father, Anders Frederiksen, was the son of Frederick Andersen and Kirstine Christensdatter. His mother, Ellen Jensdatter, was the daughter of Jens Poulsen and Maren Steffensdatter.
James had two sisters who helped raise him. Karen, the oldest child in the family, was nearly fourteen when he was born. She married Hans Christian Nielsen and lived to be eighty years old. Kirstine, the second child in the family, was twelve years older than James. She married Hans Olsen 1 Nov 1845. She came to Utah and died in Springville. The third child was Peder (Peter). He was almost nine when James was born. He married Hannah Becker 25 May 1855. The fourth child was named Jens. He was born five years before James and only lived fifteen months. When James (Jens) was born his parents gave him the same name as the son that died.
While still a young man, James Andersen became financially well off. He owned a blacksmith shop and employed seven men. He had money to spend, and he and his brother, Peter, frequently visited drinking places and sometimes associated with rough company in the large city of Copenhagen. James and Peter were strong, well-built men. James weighed 205 pounds and Peter weighed 220 pounds.
One evening the brothers became involved in a quarrel with some other men who were always trying to cause trouble and were jealous of the Andersen brothers’ strength. About twenty men started to attack them, but quick as a flash Peter grabbed one of the smaller men in the group by the feet and swung him around and around, as if he were using a ball bat, knocking some of them down. In this way the brothers were able to get away.
About this time of his life, James met Caroline Johanne Kirstine Sophie Nielsdatter. She was an only daughter and the second child of Niels Christensen and Ane Marie Pedersdatter. She was born 13 Aug 1842 at Norresundby, Aalborg, Denmark and was christened 18 Sep 1842. Her name is recorded on various L. D.S. Church records as Caroline Nielsen, Christensen, Christiansen, and Wieley. She had an older brother Peder (Peter).
The arrival and departure list for the town of Norresundby shows Niels Weile’s daughter Caroline left for Copenhagen 7 Oct 1857, age 15 ½ . Possibly Caroline’s parents moved there too. Caroline found employment as a governess in a wealthy family to a child who was about five or six years old. She was treated like one of the family; she went everywhere with them and learned and acquired their good manners.
Caroline and her parents met the Mormon elders and were investigating the Church. One night Caroline and her girl friend were walking , and on the way home they passed a dance hall. Her girl friend said, “Won’t you wait and let me go in and dance just one dance?” Caroline’s parents didn’t allow her to go to public dances, so she waited while her friend danced. It was there that Caroline met James Andersen. He often said she looked so pure and different than the other girls who attended the dances. He asked her to dance, but she told him her folks didn’t
allow her to dance; then he asked if he might call on her at her home. She invited him to Sunday dinner. Caroline told James that her parents were having the Mormon elders for dinner. James had heard very little about the Mormons, but he accepted the invitation. On Sunday, Caroline told James that she was investigating and studying the Mormon scriptures and was thinking of being baptized into the Mormon Church. James was shocked and surprised that she would have anything to do with them. He told the elders they were just trying to get beautiful girls to go to Utah for immoral purposes.
Caroline was true to her convictions. She had faith that God had talked to Joseph Smith and had revealed the Gospel to the earth. Caroline joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 24 May 1862, a few months before her twentieth birthday. At first her father was skeptical about the new religion. However he was always good and kind to the elders. He gave them many meals and a good bed to sleep in. It is told that many a winter night, Neils would get out of his warm bed and turn it over to the elders. One day an elder said to him, “You will yet join the Church and go to Utah! I know this because you have given the elders the best of beds and the best to eat. The time will come when you will join the Church, go to Utah and be buried in the temple clothes.” That prophecy came true.
When James called again on Caroline, she told him that she had been baptized and was now a Mormon. James felt she had made a mistake. One evening when he was visiting Caroline, he noticed some books lying on a table. He asked about them and Caroline told him they were Mormon books: The Book Of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. James asked if he might take the books home and read them. Caroline was happy to have him read them. James said, “I will bring them back in one week. I’d like to know what these books have that convert people to become Mormons. Good night, Caroline. I will see you in one week.”
The next morning being Monday, James told the men at the blacksmith shop that he wouldn’t be back for a week and for them to carry on with the work. He then returned home and started reading. He studied the books faithfully and carefully, he fasted and prayed about what he read, and he gained a testimony of their truthfulness. The next Sunday, James returned the books to Caroline. As he placed them on the little table he said, “This work is true. I have found out for myself.”
James had been in the habit of using tobacco, and fifteen fancy pipes could be seen hanging on a rack in his room. His convictions of the gospel were so strong that he quit all his bad habits and was baptized a member of the Church 4 July 1862.
On 6 April 1863 James and Caroline were married. He was twenty-seven and she was twenty. They decided to join the Saints in Utah. After selling their property, James and Caroline left Denmark for America with Caroline’s parents, James’s brother, Peter, and Peter’s wife Hannah and their son Carl. Caroline’s brother Peder (Peter) Nielsen (Hujl) came over later. The young couple had been advised to pool their money with the other immigrants on board the ship for safekeeping. James and Caroline pooled seven hundred dollars, but when they landed and asked for their money, they did not receive any. No one could explain what had happened to it. They felt very sad over this misfortune. James was so grieved that he went to his Heavenly Father in prayer. It seemed as if a voice said, “Do not turn back or leave the Church for this, Brother Anderson; it is the faults of men and has nothing to do with the principles of the gospel.” James felt as if he were being tested but also felt that his faith could stand the test.
James and Caroline left Florence, Nebraska 29 June 1863, and crossed the plains in Captain John R. Murdock’s Company with 275 people. When they came to the Missouri River, James, being an excellent swimmer and much in need of a bath , took off his clothes and jumped in. He landed in the middle of a whirlpool that swallowed him up. He was carried downstream about a mile before he could get out. His young bride thinking that he was surely drowned ran for help. People started looking for him all along the river bank, then they saw him coming through the bushes trying to get to this clothes without being seen.
While crossing the plains, one day he laid down on the ground and put his tired feet upon a rock to rest them. Someone, a distance away, saw his foot just above the rock and thought it was a big blackbird. They took a shot at it. The bullet barely missed him and he heard its whistling sound as it whizzed past. He walked nearly all the way to Salt Lake City, and Caroline walked all the way.
The company arrived in Salt Lake City 29 Aug 1863. They were sent south to help colonize central Utah. They first went to Santaquin, but finding no employment in that settlement, they moved and settled in Spanish Fork. It was too late in the year to get timber out of the canyon to build a home, so they made a dugout or cellar between First and Third South on Main Street. Other people also lived in dugouts until they had time to build the usual log cabins. James and Caroline put their few belongings in the dugout and tried to make it as comfortable as possible as they were expecting their first baby. The winter was wet and cold, and the water seeped through the walls and up through the floor. When it stormed the roof leaked. They put rocks down to step on so they would not get their feet wet.
While they were living in this dugout, Caroline’s first baby was born. They named him James. It was so cold the top bed covers froze. Caroline’s mother would cry and say, “Caroline and the baby will die.” James answered, “We must have faith that God will bless and take care of them.” Caroline suffered and endured many hardships while living in this dugout. The baby survived only a few weeks. The night the baby died the parents were grief stricken. It was so cold that Caroline’s nightgown froze stiff where the milk ran from her breasts after the death of the baby. Of this period of time, Caroline’s daughter Hazel wrote:
“It probably did rain in the dugout that they dug out for themselves, as Mother said she could see through the roof. Mother didn’t speak of boards but said there were branches of trees spread across. If there had been boards, it seems to me they could have put some dirt on them and made it warmer. Mother said the baby died of canker. It’s little mouth was all inflamed and it went clear thru onto its bottom before it died. How it ever lived as long as it did is more than I can figure out. Mother said she had two diapers made out of the tail end of Dad’s shirt.”
James and Caroline were very poor. They lived on carrots, bran bread, and a few fish caught from Utah Lake. Flour was scarce and sold for $20.00 per hundred pounds, but they didn’t have money to buy flour. Finally when spring came, James said to Caroline, “I will walk to Salt Lake and get work so we will be able to get some shortbread which is a little easier to digest.” James walked to Salt Lake City with no shoes on his feet to find employment as a blacksmith. When he arrived his feet were swollen and bleeding. He went to the home of his brother, Peter, and wife Hannah. Hannah bathed and doctored his feet as best she could. He was unsuccessful in finding work, and when his feet got better he walked all the way back to Spanish
Fork again without shoes.
Shortly after this, James started to make mud adobes and he constructed a little two-room house. It was built on about Third South and Main. He also built a blacksmith shop to do the trade he knew best. He could see that it would be good to get land and a farm. He worked hard and eventually owned one hundred and sixty acres of land on Dry Creek in Springville, also land in Mapleton, and in the fields of Spanish Fork, Utah. When the pioneers first came to Spanish Fork only a small portion was settled. They first settled where Palmyra Ward, Third Ward, and Second Ward are today. The other areas in Spanish Fork were covered with sagebrush, bushes, willows, and trees.
The Indians were bad in those days. They would steal cattle from the settlers. All the men had their turn guarding the cattle. A few of the men who herded the cattle were captured by the Indians and scalped. The Indians would then take the scalps, make a bonfire, and dance around the burned scalps.
The Indians came many times to the blacksmith shop and asked for food. James never refused them. One day an Indian came sneaking in. James invited him to sit by the sagebrush fire to warm himself, and he gave him something to eat. Sometime after that it was James’s turn to herd the cattle. The Indians captured him. They danced around him making their war whoops as they prepared to scalp him. James saw one Indian leave the circle and talk to the others. They talked, but still danced. It was the same Indian that had come to the blacksmith shop to get warm. At last they stopped dancing and yelling, but before they let him go, they shot an arrow right by his head to show what they could have done. James always said, “A little kindness to an Indian saved my life.”
By this time James’s brother, Peter, had moved from Salt Lake City to Spanish Fork. It was his turn to be on guard to watch for Indians. While on guard one night, he was lying near some sagebrush where the city cemetery is now. He pulled his gun close to his side and the trigger caught on the sagebrush and shot him through the shoulder. He lived for six weeks and then died from the wound 17 Oct 1866. Peter and Hannah had one child, a son named Carl, who had been born while they lived in Denmark. He grew up and lived in Spanish Fork.
James and Caroline were endowed and sealed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, 20 Oct 1865. After his brother Peter died, James married Peter’s widow, Hannah Becker, 10 October 1867. This was a marriage in name only as he never lived with her.
James Anderson was a solid, reliable man. He was well-informed on the practical affairs of life, possessed good common sense, and was in every respect a man of high character. Shortly after moving to Spanish Fork he helped with the communication between his fellow Danish immigrants and the English-speaking bishop. For many years he acted as advisor and interpreter to new Danish immigrants that came to Spanish Fork.
Through a revelation from the Lord to Joseph Smith, the Church members practiced plural marriage. Caroline gave her permission for James to live this law, but it was hard for her to see him court young ladies and to share her husband with them. They had been in Utah 10 ½ years when he married Mary Catherine Hansen. She was just fifteen years old. They were married 23 Mar 1874 in the Endowment House. At this time James lacked one month of being thirty-nine, and his wife Caroline was thirty-one. Caroline had borne six children, three of which were living, and she was expecting another child. Three years and eight months later, 5 Dec
1877, James married Catherine’s younger sister, Jensina, who was sixteen years and ten months old. This marriage took place in the St. George Temple the year it was dedicated. The new wives were the daughters of James Hansen and Karen Andersen, their neighbor. James rotated his time, spending a week in each home with his wives.
These three women, Caroline, Mary Catherine, and Jensina were all good wives and
mothers. Religion was an important part of their lives. They always held family prayers, they attended church, and attended Stake Conference in Provo.
James Andersen was a religious man. He had great faith in God. He had many experiences where his faith and the power of the priesthood healed those in need. Many times he was called to go to the home of neighbors and friends to give a blessing to heal the sick. He also used this authority in his own home. His own wife, Jensina, had a child who took convulsions. James went into the mountains in Springville Canyon and fasted two days and prayed to God. When he came home, the baby was black in another spell. James said, “That is the last she will ever take. God has promised me.” She never took another spell.
Another time, Lucille, James and Mary Catherine’s daughter, was riding a horse that jumped a ditch. Lucille was thrown on the bank and broke her arm and shoulder. There was no money for a doctor, and James had faith that he could set the arm himself. Catherine and Jensina were skeptical, so James asked them and the other children to leave. He asked his daughter, Laura, to stay and help him. After kneeling in prayer, he tore a sheet into strips, improvised a splint, and had Laura hold the arm in position. He did a perfect job of setting her arm and shoulder. After it mended, it was as good as new.
Another time, James had the wagon loaded with children when Jensina’s son, Wilford, fell out and the back wheel of the wagon rolled over him. The child was nearly purple when his father picked him up. James placed Wilford on a blanket and pillow and administered to him. When he awakened several hours later, he was all right.
Still another incident showing James’s faith and the power of the priesthood was when Emily, Mary Catherine’s daughter, had rheumatism and leakage of the heart. James blessed her and promised her she would live to go through the temple. She was married to Frank Leahy, 21 Oct 1908, and died 23 Nov 1910.
Still another time, James was at Utah Lake gathering ice to be used in the hot summer months. He had a load of ice on the wagon when one of his children, riding on the wagon seat with him, fell and was run over with the heavy load of ice. James picked her up, took her into the tent, and gave her a blessing. Within a few hours she was up and around playing with the other children.
James was a strong man who liked to play with his children. He would lay spreadeagle on the ground and tell each of his sons (who were over nineteen years of age) to take an arm or leg and try to hold him down. They would get a firm hold and then James would ask, “Are you ready?” They would answer, “Yes,” and James would then sit up. They could not hold him down. James’s children loved and respected him. The advice he gave to his daughters when they left home was, “Be wary of men and always have enough money in reserve for a train ticket home.”
James was called on a Scandinavian mission to Denmark. He arrived there 9 Dec 1887.
It was said he left home with seven dollars in his pocket. He traveled without purse or scrip. He left three wives and seventeen children, thirteen of them under ten years old. It was hard times and food was scarce while he was gone. When he was on the train leaving Spanish Fork for Denmark, the federal marshals were coming down the aisle of the train looking for someone, probably polygamists. James stopped the boy on the train who sold things and purchased a newspaper and a cigar. He lit the cigar. When the federal marshals walked up to him and pushed back the newspaper he was reading, they saw him smoking the cigar and walked on, probably thinking no good Mormon would smoke. He returned home late in the summer of 1889.
Sometime before 1874, James had built a new home for his family on Fourth North and Fifth East in Spanish Fork. They were living there when James married Mary Catherine. Her parents lived across the street. James had also built a home on his farm at Dry Creek, located south and west of Springville. This home was built out of adobe bricks James had made. Caroline lived, at least part of the time, on the farm at Dry Creek after his marriages to the Hansen girls. Later in 1895, James had a new home built at Dry Creek. Mary Catherine and Jensina moved into the new home, and Caroline moved back to the home in town where she lived the rest of her life.
The new home built at Dry Creek was built by James’s son-in-law, Lee Parmelee, husband of Victoria. The new home was built of brick and arranged for two families. Each side had four rooms: two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a parlor. In addition there was a large family room used by both families. There was a potbellied stove in the front room. There was much excitement when they got a new kitchen stove with a side reservoir for heating water.
Polygamy was against the law, and many of the men would go into hiding to avoid going to prison. Many old gray-haired men, honorable citizens who had married their wives years before, in their young days, and raised honorable families which they refused to abandon, were given from sixty days to eight years in the penitentiary and in some cases a heavy fine and costs besides. James was imprisoned twice on charges of polygamy. He was sentenced 10 Oct 1889, in the First District Court, Provo, Utah, by Judge Judd to 75 days and a fifty dollar fine. He was discharged on 22 Jan 1890. On 7 Nov 1892 he was again sentenced for one month. He was held longer and discharged 6 Jan 1893. The procedure against the Mormons was so strong that evidence and arguments for defendants were not given much consideration. When a defendant was called before the court for sentence, his family in some cases was sitting in the court room in great agony. Many were the tears of anguish that fell from their cheeks while they listened to the sentence pronounced upon their loved one.
When the sentence was pronounced, the prisoners were taken to an upper room until train time when they were conducted down the street to the depot. They rode the train to Salt Lake City where two wagons awaited to take them to the penitentiary where the iron gates were closed and the bolts shoved into place with an extremely harsh grate. They found two pieces of canvas about two feet by seven feet on which they made their beds with quilts brought from home. Life in prison was endured. They were permitted to hold their Sabbath School.
James Andersen filled many important positions in the Church in Spanish Fork. He was ordained a high priest and set apart as a counselor to the president of the High Priest Quorum 3 Sep 1876. On 7 June 1877 he was called by Bishop Snell as his first counselor. At this time
Bishop Snell was bishop over all of Spanish Fork; this position he held for a number of years. James also served as first counselor to President Page in the Nebo Stake Presidency, with counselor Henry Gardner. He presided over the Scandinavian meetings and conferences for many years.
As James got older he must have known he didn’t have long to live. One Sunday he came from church and said, “Caroline I am going home.” She said, “How do you know?” He said, “I am leaking from a wound in my stomach” (this was supposed to have been made by a bayonet in Denmark). He had received a blessing that it would heal as long as he lived. Now that it was leaking, he knew his time had come.
James Anderson was blessed with three good women. He was always concerned with the spiritual growth of his children and his desire was for his children to serve God. He was the father of thirty-two children by three wives. He always tried to be faithful to God, his wives, and the Church. He was a true Latter-day Saint, never shirking his duty in any way. On his death bed he asked if all his business had been taken care of and if all his debts were paid. He died 16 Sep 1906, at the age of 71 years. His three wives and most of his children were at his bedside at the time of his death. His daughter, Hazel, said of his death, “He died at Catherine’s place. I was there. I saw him die and heard the conversation. I loved Dad very much and he loved his children, every one of them.” He was buried in the Spanish Fork Cemetery.
Caroline Nielsen Andersen was a dutiful, loving, wife and mother. She was patient and kind through all of her hardships, never complaining. She taught her children the principles of the gospel and instilled in their hearts the virtues of truth, honesty, and righteousness. Night and morning she gathered her children in family prayer, asking God for guidance and protecting care at all times. She helped support her family by selling butter and eggs, sewing, and weaving yards of homemade carpets and rugs. Her home was humble, but it was neat and clean. She kept the top of her cook stove polished black and shiny. She was generous in her gifts to the poor and needy. She was a full tithe payer and a faithful Relief Society visiting teacher for many years. She was small in stature, with blue eyes and black hair that never turned gray.
When Caroline’s mother died 6 June 1882, her father came to live with her and her family. Her father needed care in his later years, and Caroline took care of him. He wore wooden shoes which he would clomp around in. He refused to give them up, and it sometimes embarrassed some of his grandchildren. Caroline’s daughter, Hazel, wrote of her grandfather Niels, “It seems as far back as I remember I can see Grandfather sitting in his armchair by the kitchen stove. He was a fine looking gentleman even when he was old. His old wooden shoes were as real to me as the family loom that they had brought over from Denmark. Mother made twelve cents a yard weaving carpets for other people.” Niels Christensen died 25 Aug 1896. Niels and Ane Marie were both buried on James Andersen’s cemetery lot. Their names are written as Niels C. Veile and Ane Marie Veile. In Caroline’s later life she was anxious that her son, Walter, go to the Brigham Young University in Provo; so she rented a home in Provo and took care of him while he went to school for four winters.
James’s daughter Hazel said of her mother Caroline:
“I can remember all my life how she tried to teach us good manners--especially table manners. With the little she had she held on to the niceties of life. She had a stormy life both here
and there. I think the happiest part of her life was when she was a governess to those people and the first years she was married to Dad. She really was in love with him--probably always was, but things changed when polygamy came into the picture. I remember when he was dying Dad
looked at her and said, ‘Caroline I will put you in your place.’ She looked at him sort of defiantly and answered, ‘I’ve earned my place,”--indeed she had. She was a great soul . . .
Dad was a kind and loving father and I think his father must have been before him. We are so apt to put people on a pedestal after they are gone, and forget their weaknesses. If there is anyone who should be given a halo it is my mother. If it hadn’t been for strong religious belief she couldn’t have stood it. God bless both of them. He was only human--but she was a saint.”
Caroline Nielsen Andersen died of pneumonia 28 Jan 1922, age seventy-nine, at the home of her daughter Mary Caroline Andersen in Mapleton, Utah. She was buried in the Spanish Fork Cemetery by the side of her husband.
History -- James Andersen and Caroline Nielsen--History and Posterity. Compiled by Marilyn and George R. Hall, 1987.
James and Caroline were the parents of eleven children as follows:
James Andersen born 1863-1864 died 1863-1864
Mary Caroline Andersen born 18 February 1866 died 23 November 1947
Oscar Andersen born 9 March 1868 died 10 November 1926
Victoria Andersen born 8 April 1870 died 1 October 1957
Almyra Andersen born 2 May 1872 died 2 May 1872
Otto Andersen born 11 August 1873 died 18 August 1873
Amelia Andersen born 10 September 1874 died 28 February 1875
Anders Frederick born 15 January 1876 died 23 January 1888
Amelia Dagmar Andersen born 3 May 1880 died 19 May 1944
Jemima (Hazel) Andersen born 23 May 1883 died 25 April 1965
Waldomar (Walter) Andersen born 23 May 1887 died 29 January 1969